Cellulose is one of the most ubiquitous and important natural carbohydrate polymers on earth. Cellulose is a linear biopolymer found in plant cells such as trees, plants, and algae. Cellulose is a polysaccharide made up of many thousands of glucose units and is known as poly 1,4-β-D-glucose. Cellulose has the general formula (C6H10O5)n. The lignin, hemicellulose, and cellulose configurations found in plant cells make the β linkages in the cellulose polymer difficult to access and cleave. This feature, along with the ability to form long hydrogen-bonded fibers, makes cellulose a stable and strong material for plant structures. The following figure shows the chemical structure of cellulose where individual glucose units are linked in the β-position.

Phenolics and ketones are a class of important industrial chemicals that are widely used in the polymer, adhesives, and solvent markets. The current large-scale production of phenol mostly uses the cumene process, also known as the cumene-phenol or Hock process. In the cumene process, the starting materials benzene and propylene are first converted to cumene and then subsequently to phenol with coproduction of an equimolar byproduct of acetone. The benzene and propylene starting materials are derived from the non-renewable petroleum industry on the scale of tens of millions of tons per year, which means that the process is not considered sustainable.